I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in a library… 
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The library of my youth in London used to have an LP and music book room. Used to love it in there, especially as there were turntables and headphones available so you could sit, listen and read while you were there.
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I wrote a poem about an unloved library.
Forgotten Library
There, on shelves lie never read,
Novelists and children’s books,
Forgotten poets now long dead,
In this room where no one looks.
Comfy chairs, an open fire,
Peaceful quietness, cold within,
The place they once went to retire,
Has only lonely ghosts of kin.
Adults have no time to read,
Children, have the net, you see,
It’s sad they haven’t got the need,
This room, it craves their company.
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Aww, this is lovely…sad, but very well written. 
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The reference library can be a place of peace and solitude, when I say solitude I don’t mean isolation in a kind of stand offish kind of way… always been very helpful when it comes to mapping and local history too!
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Thanks a lot Pixie, it was aimed at a library in a stately home at the time of writing, some time ago.
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I used to go to the library 3 or 4 times a week. I used to borrow stacks of books, sometimes 20 at a time. I had book bags and made multiple trips to my car sometimes. I’ve always loved libraries and books, from when I was very young.
I literally moved to a place once just because it was close to a library. I collected library cards too. Where I live, you can get them free if you live in the state, so you can use all the online stuff plus borrow stuff from pretty much anywhere.
I belonged to 6 book clubs at one time, mostly at libraries.
As I was reading the thread, I wondered what happened to change that. For me, it was the library staff. Frustrating little things that added up over time.
I wanted to put books on hold but they had a policy of putting your full name on the hold slip they left on the shelf. They wouldn’t tell you the book on the phone due to confidentiality but if you went to the shelf you couldn’t miss who was reading what. It took them years and my trying to explain it to the head librarian and them getting a new head librarian for that to change.
Staff shortages made everything so difficult.
Much easier to have an online account. Books return automatically. No dealing with staff and silly rules.
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I hope it won’t. So far there hasn’t been any sign of our local libraries being closed down. But who knows. I’ve been a library person all my life. I always loved reading and informing myself and used to be so happy that I could either spend hours in them engrossed in reading or borrow some books for reading at home usually late at night in bed. I’m still grateful to my mother who’d inspired me to become a reader when I was a young boy. No doubt, I’d be - well, let me say - a different person today if I hadn’t followed her advice.
For me, a public library (at least one because in university towns you have more than one) is part of an indispensable urban infrastructure and urban culture. I appreciated it, too, when the public libraries in the cities I lived in were all refurbished and modernized some years ago. I just couldn’t afford to pay for all those expensive mags and books that I borrow each year. The fee of £17 a year is just ridiculously low by comparison. True, I have to make a move and go there to borrow everything I want to read which takes me half an hour by car plus £2-3 parking fee. But it’s really worth it.
Although I like computers and really are what you may call a digital person (not native, though) I simply can’t enjoy reading books and mags on my notebook. I’ve tried e-Readers and the range of stuff they provide, too, but they aren’t any better and, for sure, don’t offer the things I want to read. So no improvement or alternative.
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No… please let’s not have a dig at librarians or indeed libraries in general, they still have a lot to offer!
That wasn’t my intention at all. In fact, when it was happening, I thought that it was probably just my local area that had poorly trained staff, and maybe it was. But when I look at the trend, it seems like something is going on and thought my experience might not be as isolated as I thought. When funds are leaving an industry, it’s hard to keep the standards as high as they were.
But if, in people’s local areas, the offerings are just as good, that’s great. Not putting that down at all. Just in my case, it wasn’t working out. For me, technology worked better.
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I don’t agree at all .
There is a pleasure in holding a book and people go to the library for quite companionship safety and warmth .Are people to be reduced to lonely geeks reading alone online instead of what nature intended us to be human beings who have a natural desire for human contact .
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I do almost all my reading online now, either with Borrow-Box or Kindle. Books can be heavy and awkward to read. Plus a book is
a book. I live alone with my cat and without a book, the days would
be very long. I’m not a tv fan and watch very little.
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Welcome back to the forum. Nice to see you posting again. 
Thanks, Butterscotch.
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Welcome from me too GhF, nice post…
Personally, I do not go to libraries very often, but that has nothing to do with technology. I hate ebooks etc. But I do still buy books & love books. As a foreigner (a Roman?) once said. A home without books is like a body without a soul.
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Thanks, OGF, hope you don’t mind me using initials. I’m a two-finger typist, prone to typos and slow.
No problem GhF, I think most members know me by just the initials now…
Don’t you listen to him GhF…most people know him by his legs! 
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Way-hay! 
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